Following up on my recent posting on the noun grow … Danny Bloom has pointed me to some material that suggests a different route to it than simple nouning.
It turns out that there are plenty of hits for marijuana grow operation (and some for marijuana grow-op), and even more for marijuana growing operation (and some for marijuana growing op). These expressions are used to refer to both outdoor and indoor operations, but, crucially, they’re primarily to refer to the enterprises in question, and only secondarily (if at all) to the places where these enterprises are carried on.
Start with the fullest and most standard variant:
Officers in San Francisco uncovered a marijuana growing operation in a home in the city’s Sunset District on Wednesday afternoon. (link)
Then, clip growing to grow:
Federal and local law enforcement agents confiscated roughly 30000 marijuana plants growing among pine trees in the Pike National Forest. (link)
Then clip operation to op, either with growing:
Marijuana growing op in Miami mall storage area busted (link)
or with grow:
300-plant marijuana grow-op busted in North Van forest (link)
Then it’s just a step to marijuana grow on its own, with various senses having to do with pot growing (and of course to grow on its own, with the domain understood from context):
Tribal police raid Mexican marijuana grow site (link)
Washington’s Cannabis Eradication Response Team members raid a marijuana grow near Harrah, Wash. (link)
Record marijuana grow pulled up by the roots in Siskiyou County (link)
There are hits for parallel expressions with pot or cannabis rather than marijuana in them, but my task here is not to survey all possible expressions in this domain.
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